Monday, December 05, 2005

The Ant and the Grasshopper

Ricky Larch tells me yet another bigoted rightwing version of Aesop's fable is making the rounds, so here's a couple of my own. As usual they are copy-left and any improvements are welcome.

The Ant and the Grasshopper - Nature version

The ant works hard in the withering heat all summer long, building his house and laying up supplies for winter.

The grasshopper thinks he's a fool, and laughs and dances and plays the summer away.

Come winter, the worker ant is dead because worker members of the ant family, Formicidae, only live a maximum of a few weeks.
By contrast, members of the grasshopper order, Orthoptera, live for at least several months.

The Libertarian Ant and the Grasshopper

The ant works hard in the withering heat all summer long, building his house and laying up supplies for winter.

The grasshopper thinks he's a fool, and laughs and dances and plays the summer away.

Finally the ant asks the grasshopper why he isn't working too.

"I own all this land," answers the grasshopper, "so I just take whatever I need from the fruits of your labour."

"Sounds like a tax to me," says the ant, "and I hate taxes. Everyone has the right to the profits of his own labour."

"It is a tax," admits the grasshopper, "but when a person or a business does it instead of government, we call it 'rent' instead."

"That's not fair," protests the ant.

"Take it up with that corporate welfare bum you call your queen," advises the grasshopper. "You ants get all outraged about government taxes while that queen is sucking you dry."

"But I'm going to be a queen one day," insists the ant.

"You should live so long," retorts the grasshopper. "Try reading the Nature Version again."


More fables from Wealth Bondage, who - being a dom - topped us.
Thanks, Chris.

4 comments:

Chris said...

A friend of mine picked this up and contributed several more...

http://www.thehappytutor.com/archives/2005/12/the_grasshopper_and_the_a.html

Chris said...

Try this link

Anonymous said...

I hadn't thought of the game as a competition! More like a potluck after tidying up when some wingers have been littering.

Anonymous said...

Look at that, a link that takes you to dumpster diving wealth bondage. Maybe the wingers from the potluck were chicken wingers and ended up in the dumpster. Considering S&M's largest clientelle are corporate powermongers looking to get off by having pain inflicted on them (after spending all week inflicting pain on the masses), maybe Aesop has a fable about the Dominatrix usually being an abused person allowing their anger to make them bucks.

I'm surprised the grasshopper didn't say to the ant, "Whip me, baby!".

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